Community based activities improve women’s lives

Jipe Moyo women group in their tomatoes garden

Jipe Moyo Women Group, Kibara village in Bunda District (Lake Zone part of Tanzania) is made of 30 women who are engaging in small income generating activities for their livelihood. The group was established in 2006 following their own ambition of liberating themselves from poverty through forming self help groups. The aim of the group was to help each other through undertaking small income generating activities eg horticulture, poultry keeping and fishing.

Women of this group are the living testimonies which show that communities can improve their livelihood by successfully engaging in community income generating activities.

''We started off by forming a group and identifying the activities we will be undertaking.. we used our little knowledge, encouragement and advice from different people on how to initiate group activities’’. says Group secretary, Esther adonius.

Highlights

The project is being supported through UNDP core resources (US$3,630,000) and One UN fund (US$1000,000)

Through the project, Jipe Moyo Group acquired water pump generator and 2000 litres reserve tank which is supporting them in sustainable irrigation scheme.

In 2012 the group received TZS 45,669,000 grant from UNDP via Micro Capital Small Grants Programme with the aim of supporting women who are living at the shores of the Lake Victoria at Bunere Ward/Village. The women were supported in the activities like horticulture, fish and chicken keeping, farming and environmental management.

''After received this grant we concentrated on horticulture activities including growing cabbage, spinach, tomatoes, and poultry farming. We have currently harvested more than 80 tins of tomatoes ’’. She continued. One tin is about Tsh10, 000 -15,000’’ added esther.

To get better results out of their activities, the group members have been taught how to use modern pesticides, digging trenches in their gardens, choosing good seeds, using dry grass to preserve moisture, modern poultry farming, and marketing of their products.

''In previous years we were not getting good harvests because we didn’t knew the importance of using modern ways in horticultural activities. For example we were using local pesticides in our gardens''. commented another group member

In addition to horticulture activities, the group used part of the grant in poultry farming in which now they have around 200 chickens that have already started to hatch eggs. They are currently planning to incubate the eggs in the CBO incubating machine at Kibara.

''The sale of tomatoes, eggs and chicken will be the main incomes for our group. I personally have improved my livelihood out of this work. Metilda says. I encourage other women to engage themselves in activities like these to work their way out of poverty’’

However the project activities have also helped improvement of infrastructures in the village whereby sustainable energy was installed in the village to support poultry farming. The standby generator has been installed to support incubator machine incase of power cuts.

Through the project activities, the CBOs in Bunda District have been jointly networking together, learning best practices and challenges among each other which will help to replicate the achievement of the community based activities in the whole District.

Community based Activities are being supported under the project on Capacity Development for Results based Monitoring, evaluation & auditing as a driver for achieving development results aiming at field testing poverty reduction integrated solutions with the view to accelerating achievement of MDGs and generating employment for youth and women.

The project also aimed in responding to expressed needs of the Government in the context of the public financial management (PFM) as well as addressing the capacity gaps in the national poverty monitoring and evaluation institutions and systems, including sub-national and community monitoring systems.